12,396 research outputs found
Regulatory-Optimal Funding
Funding is a cost to trading desks that they see as an input. Current
FVA-related literature reflects this by also taking funding costs as an input,
usually constant, and always risk-neutral. However, this funding curve is the
output from a Treasury point of view. Treasury must consider
Regulatory-required liquidity buffers, and both risk-neutral (Q) and physical
measures (P). We describe the Treasury funding problem and optimize against
both measures, using the Regulatory requirement as a constraint. We develop
theoretically optimal strategies for Q and P, then demonstrate a combined
approach in four markets (USD, JPY, EUR, GBP). Since we deal with physical
measures we develop appropriate statistical tests, and demonstrate highly
significant (p<0.00001), out-of-sample, improvements on hedged funding with a
combined approach achieving 44% to 71% of a perfect information criterion. Thus
regulatory liquidity requirements change both the funding problem and funding
costs.Comment: 20 pages; 8 figures; 2 tables, Risk, April 201
Do jets precess... or even move at all?
Observations of accreting black holes often provoke suggestions that their
jets precess. The precession is usually supposed to result from a combination
of the Lense-Thirring effect and accretion disc viscosity. We show that this is
unlikely for any type of black hole system, as the disc generally has too
little angular momentum compared with a spinning hole to cause any significant
movement of the jet direction across the sky on short timescales. Uncorrelated
accretion events, as in the chaotic accretion picture of active galactic
nuclei, change AGN jet directions only on timescales \gtrsim 10^7 yr. In this
picture AGN jet directions are stable on shorter timescales, but uncorrelated
with any structure of the host galaxy, as observed. We argue that observations
of black-hole jets precessing on timescales short compared to the accretion
time would be a strong indication that the accretion disc, and not the standard
Blandford-Znajek mechanism, is responsible for driving the jet. This would be
particularly convincing in a tidal disruption event. We suggest that additional
disc physics is needed to explain any jet precession on timescales short
compared with the accretion time. Possibilities include the radiation warping
instability, or disc tearing.Comment: 4 pages. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Estimating returns to education: three natural experiment techniques compared
Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan compare three quasi-experimental approaches to estimating the returns to schooling in Australia: instrumenting schooling using month of birth, instrumenting schooling using changes in compulsory schooling laws, and comparing outcomes for twins.
Abstract
With annual pre-tax income as our measure of income, we find that the naïve (OLS) returns to an additional year of schooling is 13%. The month of birth IV approach gives an 8% rate of return to schooling, while using changes in compulsory schooling laws as an IV produces a 12% rate of return.
Finally, we review estimates from twins studies. While we estimate a higher return to education than previous studies, we believe that this is primarily due to the better measurement of income and schooling in our dataset. Australian twins studies are consistent with our findings insofar as they find little evidence of ability bias in the OLS rate of return to schooling. Our estimates of the ability bias in OLS estimates of the rate of return to schooling range from 9% to 39%.
Overall, our findings suggest the Australian rate of return to education, corrected for ability bias, is around 10%, which is similar to the rate in Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States
CDS pricing under Basel III: capital relief and default protection
Basel III introduces new capital charges for CVA. These charges, and the
Basel 2.5 default capital charge can be mitigated by CDS. Therefore, to price
in the capital relief that CDS contracts provide, we introduce a CDS pricing
model with three legs: premium; default protection; and capital relief. If
markets are complete, with no CDS bond basis, then CDSs can be replicated by
taking short positions in risky floating bonds issued by the reference entity
and a riskless bank account. If these conditions do not hold, then it is
theoretically possible that the capital relief that CDSs provide may be priced
in. Thus our model provides bounds on the CDS-implied hazard rates when markets
are incomplete. Under simple assumptions we show that 20% to over 50% of
observed CDS spread could be due to priced in capital relief. Given that this
is different for IMM and non-IMM banks will we see differential pricing?Comment: 16 pages, 10 figues, 3 table
AGN Flickering and Chaotic Accretion
Observational arguments suggest that the growth phases of the supermassive
black holes in active galactic nuclei have a characteristic timescale yr. We show that this is the timescale expected in the chaotic accretion
picture of black hole feeding, because of the effect of self-gravity in
limiting the mass of any accretion disc feeding event.Comment: 3 pages. Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter
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